Making your own musical instruments is always fun, and if they can be interfaced with a computer it's possible to have all sorts of musical output. This is all possible and more with the following project by Instructables member laurencallahan whose eight-element xylophone can be interfaced with a PC to become a MIDI-compatible keyboard.

Each key is sensed with a small piezo element, whose input is measured by the Arduino and data send back to the computer via USB for analysis and playback. And as there are eight keys and only six analogue inputs on a Uno board, a multiplexer is used to harness all the keys (or more if required).

If you're looking for an Arduino Uno-compatible board for various projects, choose what tens of thousands of others have done and use our Freetronics Eleven - the Arduino-Uno compatible with low-profile USB socket, onboard prototyping space and easy to view LEDs: